"Reality leaves a lot to the imagination." - John Lennon
We have this concept we call “reality”. It’s a bit of a mushy idea.
Is a rock real? Of course it is, we say. It physically exists. You can touch it. You can trip over it. You can break things with it. What about a Mooglesnoot (the purple-footed ones, not the crested howlers)? Well, no, those aren’t real. They’re only in my imagination (and now yours).
Is an idea real? Is an emotion? Is a memory? We do use that phrase a lot in that context – your “real” opinion, your “real” feelings. They’re no more physical than the Mooglesnoot, and what existence they have is in the same place. So why is one real, and the other not?
Like I said, it’s a mushy idea.
Charles Forte, the great chronicler of weird, often talked about the vague and uncertain line between real and not-real, or accepted and not-accepted. There is nothing that is purely true, he would say, and nothing that is purely fiction – there is only truth-fiction. And maybe he was onto something there. Maybe “real” is something of a popularity contest, a decision we make - often by consensus - of what’s acceptable and what’s not, what’s credible and what’s implausible.
Let’s talk about some of those judgments, and how we make them. And let’s start with this: Are you sure that rock is real?
Read on . . .
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